A hotel room in Zhestisay, Kazakhstan

Photo by Carolyn Drake, 2009

Iran coming out of shadows one photo at a time

 

Photo by Newsha Tavakolian

An Iranian woman walks through a haze of smoke caused by the burning of the herb esfand. According to popular belief, this ritual drives away the evil eye.

Dizy Abgousht

By Marcos Grigorian, 1979, Mixed media

Ahmad Aali* on photography

“Photography for me is not a pure copy of nature and objective reality. I want to intervene in nature and its realities.”

“I wanted to show that photography is an expansive language that, like other plastic art forms, is capable of describing emotions as well as showing us objective realities, compositions, and forms.”

Aali is the first photographer in Iran to have a solo exhibition of his art works.

Untitled

By Ahmad Aali, 1967, Mixed media on paper

“Ahmad Aali is… a history-maker in Iranian photography. He impregnated photography in Iran with a turning point that opened a new chapter in this visual medium, giving us a chance to see the other (artistic) side of photography.”

Shahriar  Tavakolli

Don’t Forget This Is not for You (for Sahar Lofti)

Photo by Newsha Tavakolian,

2010

Untitled (Large Embassy with Red Mirror #1)

Photo by John Jurayj